I have very little knowledge about the doom metal genre so I’m pretty much listening to and commenting on this LP in a vacuum. That said, I think I like it! Lots and lots of Black Sabbath sounds: pretty much the riff from “Iron Man” tweaked into different melodies. Not tempos – it’s all sludge. I’d say elements of grunge as well but I have a feeling the doom metal folks might come after me with that comparison (though I did just do a Wiki search on Eric Wagner and he did collaborate with Dave Grohl in 2004 on the song “My Tortured Soul“). I hear lots of 80’s era Soundgarden, especially on tracks like “The Longing.”  My top tracks, besides “The Longing” are the title track “The Endless Road Turns Dark” and “Breathing Underwater” – both are very Sabbath-esque.

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Side A starts off with the always awesome Quadrajets playing “Fireball” (from When the World’s on Fire!) followed by the best-of-the-garage-punks Murder City Devils’ “I Want A Lot Now” (from Empty Bottles Broken Hearts). The next track is pretty good, Pulpit Red’s “Zero Nights” (from Lurk). “The Ballad of Rachel & Candi” by Three Years Down (previously unreleased) is just OK and while I generally like Black Halos (I’m pretty sure we saw them open for Murder City Devils in ‘99 at a show in Madison), I’m not crazy about “For You” (from The Black Halos). American Heartbreak’s “White Girl” (from Postcards From Hell) is hard-rocking emopunk played by ex-members of Bay City Rollers, Jet Boy and Exodus followed by a punked-up rockabilly goes girl-group track by Graveyard School, “Life’s Crazy” (previously unreleased).

Side B starts off with the heavily Stooges/MC5 influenced “Mr. White” by Lovemasters (from Pusherman of Love). Next up is Spitfires’ “Something For Nothing” (unreleased) which is very Murder City Devilish and excellent followed by hardcore punk-speed DGeneration’s “Prohibition” (also previously unreleased). Then comes one of my all-time favorite songs of the 90′s by Canada’s Tricky Woo “Fly the Orient”  (from Sometimes I Cry). We literally had to go to Canada to find that CD by those guys back in the early 2000′s (not sure if vinyl was ever available). I’m not familiar with the next two bands on the comp, High School Sweethearts (crunchy and melodic girl punk) with “She’s Something” (from Passing Notes) and Stilleto Boys’ “Rockets & Bombs” (Rockets & Bombs) which is snotty punk à la The Ramones. Concluding the comp are Texas punks The Reds on “Zero” (from the 7″ single) and Canada’s Von Zippers’ “Bad Generation” (Bad Generation).

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